


Staying

by goodisrelative



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodisrelative/pseuds/goodisrelative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She was staying with him because she trusted him and he complemented her.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staying

**Author's Note:**

> The Serious FanGirl Squee! has already commenced. I am dead serious in this… I don't think I have been this squeeish over a TV show since Season 2 of the West Wing when Ainsley was introduced. This has become my obsession. Get used to it now.

_ **It has arrived! My First Doctor Who Fic** _

DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who and it's characters belong to the BBC and their creators. This is not for profit and I am recognizing no financial gain from this enterprise.

Title: Staying  
Author: [](http://goodisrelative.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://goodisrelative.livejournal.com/)**goodisrelative**  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: Thru Ep 3, The Unquiet Dead  
Pairing: Gen to slight Rose/9th Doctor  
Summary: _She was staying with him because she trusted him and he complemented her._

Author's Note: The Serious FanGirl Squee! has already commenced. I am dead serious in this… I don't think I have been this squeeish over a TV show since Season 2 of the West Wing when Ainsley was introduced. This has become my obsession. Get used to it now.  
A/N 2: I watched the first 3 episodes one Saturday morning and then again that night when I "forced" Evil Twin to watch them and got her hooked on the show. I was thinking about this story… which is more of Rose's thoughts on the Doctor based on what Sci-Fi Channel showed as eps 1-3 of the first season of the New Doctor Who. This is basically what I perceive her thoughts to be. This is a product of my fangirl squee obsessed mind. Understand that now.  
A/n 3: Many, many thanks to Beta 1, [](http://thekatebeyond.livejournal.com/profile)[**thekatebeyond**](http://thekatebeyond.livejournal.com/) and British Beta, [](http://loneraven.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://loneraven.livejournal.com/)**loneraven** for the beta work. You both rock!

  
*************************

Her thoughts on that viewing platform five billion years in the future haunted her. She knew so little about him – the Doctor. She knew more, now, than she had then… but it was still so little. She came so far with him – the future, the past and places in between – yet he was still a complete stranger to her. She hadn't hesitated at all when he had come back for her. And she knew if she had the opportunity to make the decision again, the only thing she'd change was not going with him the first time he asked.

She didn't know his name – only his self-confessed title, the Doctor. She didn't know what he was, other than an alien. She didn't know his home planet's name, or anything about the war that had destroyed it. The list of what she didn't know about him stretched longer each day she was with him, as questions she wanted to ask him, yet never did, piled up.

The little things she did know about him – facts he told her – she could tick off on one hand. He was alien, the last of the Time Lords. He told her he was from the North, although never from the North of _where_. He told her he was the last of his kind, but never explained what that kind _was_. He had admitted he had fought in the war that had destroyed his planet, but didn't offer anything else about it.

But there were other things she knew about him. Things she'd learned by watching him, by talking with him, by just being with him. She held strong to her belief that it was this other knowledge that reinforced her decision to travel with him. That this other knowledge she was collecting was what her subconscious saw and what allowed her to take the leap of faith – to accept his invitation to travel through time and space with him… knowing nothing about him.

She knew he was kind and funny. That he had a warped sense of humor. That he loved to bicker and banter. That he was snarky most of the time, serious some of the time, and playful a little bit of the time. She knew he felt obligated to try and help when they stumbled over situations, especially the ones they were somehow responsible for. He felt obligated to save the worlds he came across or die trying. It was like a penance to him – he couldn't save his own world, but he would save others. Sometimes he regretted getting her into the trouble they often found themselves in. Other times he cursed the trouble she got them into, but he still saved her life.

From the beginning, she depended on him to protect her. He was always taking her hand when they had to run… and she was always already reaching for his, knowing it would be there. They'd spent maybe twelve hours together and she already trusted that his hand would be there. He was there when she needed him, even if it was with his snarky remarks. He caught her as she fell – she trusted that he always would – literally and figuratively. He'd been there, calling her name, catching her when she used the chain to swing over, saving him. He'd been there with his jiggery-pokery, fixing her mobile, when her world was dying in front of her eyes and she needed the comfort of her own time to handle it.

He wasn't naive or soft. Sometimes, when she expected him to act with human emotions and values, she found herself shocked at how cold he could be. He would let some die, not trying at all to save them, simply reminding her that "everything has its time and everything dies." There was a cosmic balance he seemed to try and keep. He could forget someone was in danger if that person didn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, didn't figure in to his plans for saving the planet they were on at the time, or the race that was in danger.

He was annoying and condescending and too often pissed her off – making her feel small, stupid, and childish when she asked certain questions, voiced certain opinions, or just didn't understand something. He withheld information, forcing her to figure things for herself, stumbling along with him blindly until she arrived at some thought he wanted her to find on her own. He was short and spoke in what seemed like riddles and half-truths until she either got it, or annoyed him enough that he finally just gave her the information – something that she knew made him angry. He expected her to learn, to work things out and not wait for his answer. He became disappointed and angry when she didn't. He made her see the cold, hard truth of the world. Sometimes things have to die for life to go on. They couldn't save everyone and everything.

He didn't see things as she did, but she liked that. No matter how angry he made her, she trusted him. She relied on him to save her, although she always tried to save herself. She trusted him implicitly, yet she'd argue with him when his values didn't match her own. She believed that their differences complemented each other.

He showed her things that she never knew existed – other planets, aliens, other worlds and other ways of thinking. But that wasn't why she was staying with him. It wasn't because he was a lousy date who made her pay for her own chips, either. She was staying with him because she trusted him and he complemented her. And because the look in his eyes when she got things right made her feel warm and happy and clever and beautiful. Like she was shining from the inside out. She was sticking with him because she needed him, and he needed her, even if he refused to admit it now. One day he would, and she'd be there, smiling, waiting for him, reaching for his hand.


End file.
